Thursday, October 2, 2014

Book It!


The workshop Book It was held at the Maldon Neighbourhood Centre, as part of the Castlemaine Children's Literature Festival. Ailsa Wild and Anna Robb took the workshop showing up to 20 children from an array of ages how to create and publish their own books using techniques such as collage, text and drawing. 

The children were able to create their book with just using a piece of A3 paper, by folding and cutting. A table was filled with book pages, felt, coloured papers and feathers which they could use for their images including the front cover. 

Ailsa Wild, inspired the kids with ideas and discussions of what a book consists of. She is an experienced teaching artist with Kids' Own Publishing, (who supported this particular workshop). Plus she is the author of the science adventure story The Squid, the Vibrio and the Moon. The illustrations inside are amazing. 

Anna Robb who also assisted with the session has been an Art teacher for the past 8 years. She enjoys working with children, and has a love of collage and bookmaking. 


^ Lusa's Dream Day by Yindi, 8. 


^ Golden Egg by Beatrice, 9. 


^ The Move by Alina, 10. 


^ Work tables covered in paper, glue, feathers and felt. 


^ The Ghost and the Haunted House by Iskha, 9. 



^ Yellow by Oonagh, 7.


^ From Ailsa Wild's collection.

All the children were very engaged with their work over the course of two and a half hours. Sharing their ideas with one another, and materials. Each had a unique story and art style (like the various ones pictured above). All using mixed media and fine-liners to create their imagery and text. The end results were very effective, especially with the felt and feathers that were used. 

There were stories about snails, dragon eggs, autumn trees and haunted houses. This is definitely a great way to engage young children with books and get them excited about learning different things. They were then able to take home published copies of their works that had been photocopied. 

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